Georgic e-bog

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. In 1697, Addison in his Essay on the Georgics complains of the neglect of these poems and of their confusion with the pastoral. There has been abundance of criticism spent on Virgil's Pastorals and Aeneids, he writes, but the Georgics are a subject which none of the critics have sufficiently taken into their consideration, most of them passing it over in silence, or casting it under the same head with Pastoral - a division by no means proper, unless we suppose the style of a Husbandman ought to be imitated in a Georgia, as that of a shepherd is in Pastoral. But though the scene of both these Poems lies in the same place; the speakers in them are of a quite different char acter, since the precepts of husbandry are not to be delivered with the simplicity of a Plowman, but with the address of a Poet. No rules therefore that relate to Pastoral, can any way affect the Georgics, since they fall under that class of Poetry, which consists In giving plain and direct instructions to the reader; whether they be Moral duties, as those of Theognis and Pythagoras; or Philosophical Speculations, as those of Ara tus and Lucretius; or Rules of practice, as those of H esiod and Virgil.